U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) held its quarterly
COAC meeting, the 2nd of 2019, in Laredo, Texas on May 30th.
Laredo has just recently overtaken Los Angeles as the highest
volume port in the U.S., processing just over $20B/month in trade this past
spring. CBP Leaders and trade advisory committee members of the COAC traveled
from Washington DC and around the U.S. to meet with Laredo-area trade
stakeholders. Laredo truck traffic had been severely hampered, like many
southwest border ports, earlier this spring by the reallocation of CBP Officers
from trade processing to assisting U.S. Border Patrol with processing migrants.
The situation has improved in the last month, but CBP resources remain
strained.

Topics at the COAC ranged from: a recent Executive Order to
Combat Trafficking
in Counterfeit Goods; the development of new risk-based bonding procedures;
new CTPAT
Minimum Security Criteria, blockchain technology, and other trade issues. The
COAC has also created a Northern Triangle Working Group to assist Central
American countries with improving trade facilitation and overall economic
conditions to create opportunity and reduce the need for Central Americans to
migrate to the U.S.

On Friday, May 31st, also in Laredo, CBP
Officials from headquarters and Laredo joined to discuss the CTPAT program with
over 100 industry members.

Led by CTPAT Director, Manny Garza, and Deputy Director of
Field Operations in Laredo, Bradd Skinner, officials discussed the new Minimum
Security Criteria (MSC) set to go into effect in January 2020. They also
discussed CTPAT program suspensions/removals, the readmittance process, and
when it is beneficial to go above and beyond the MSC.

Representing Kansas City Southern Railroad, a CTPAT member,
Director of Interline Operations, Steve Simmons, discussed the Laredo Rail
‘Secure Corridor’, a public-private partnership with CBP to make cross-border
rail operations more efficient at the Laredo border.